Such apparatuses and methods have been known for a long time from the prior art and serve, for example, to transport containers, during production, from a first treatment station, such as a blow moulding machine for example, to a further treatment station, such as a filling machine for example. Usually it involves starwheels or the like, on which a plurality of holding elements for holding the containers are arranged and which thus transport these containers along a predefined transport path. Also known, in addition, are chain conveyors which have on a chain said holding elements for holding the containers. These transport devices have the disadvantage that the spacing between the individual holding elements is fixed and cannot be varied. In addition, these apparatuses also do not permit a variable transport speed of individual holding elements.
Also known are transport devices in which the principle of a linear motor is used for moving the transport elements. Such apparatuses usually have a plurality of electromagnets arranged in a stationary manner, as well as transport elements which are movable relative thereto and which may also have magnetic means, such as permanent magnets for example. With such apparatuses, however, the problem arises that the transport elements are purely passive elements which cannot carry out any processing operations on the containers. However, it would often be desirable to carry out certain treatment operations also during transport of the individual containers, such as, for example, sterilizing operations, application operations, inspection operations or even just an opening and closing of the holding elements in order to allow a handover to further transport devices. However, this has hitherto proven to be difficult since the movement or drive for the movement also takes place by means of magnetic forces and a suitable energy transmission for such drives arranged on the transport elements is difficult to implement.